Waabi Secures $1 Billion in Funding, Expands into Robotaxis with Uber Partnership
Waabi, an autonomous vehicle startup, has secured $1 billion in funding and entered a strategic partnership with Uber. This significant expansion marks the company's first venture beyond autonomous trucking into self-driving cars on the Uber ride-hailing platform.
Funding Overview
The $1 billion funding package is comprised of two key components. An oversubscribed $750 million Series C round was co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners.
Additionally, approximately $250 million in milestone-based capital from Uber will exclusively support the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis on its platform. A specific timeline for this large-scale deployment was not disclosed.
Other prominent investors in the Series C round include NVentures (Nvidia’s VC arm), Volvo Group Venture Capital, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, BlackRock, and BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund.
Strategic Partnership & Advanced Technology
The new partnership underscores a core strategy to scale a single AI technology stack across multiple self-driving verticals.
Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun stated that the company's AI architecture allows for a single solution to operate in various markets, including both trucking and robotaxis.
Urtasun previously served as chief scientist at Uber’s autonomous vehicle division, Uber ATG, prior to its sale to Aurora Innovation in 2020. This new collaboration expands on Waabi’s existing partnership with Uber Freight.
Uber has a history of similar partnerships, working with other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo, Nuro, Avride, Wayve, WeRide, and Momenta, to integrate self-driving vehicles onto its platform. To further support these collaborations, Uber is also launching Uber AV Labs, a new division dedicated to collecting data for its AV partners.
At the heart of Waabi’s technology is the Waabi Driver, which is developed and rigorously validated using Waabi World, a sophisticated closed-loop simulator. This system creates digital twins, simulates sensors, and generates diverse scenarios for stress-testing. This unique approach enables the Waabi Driver to learn from errors without human intervention, aiming to generalize and learn effectively from fewer examples than conventional autonomous driving systems.
Company Milestones & Future Outlook
Waabi has dedicated over four years to developing its technology for both highway and surface street capabilities in trucks. The company’s "Waabi Brain" is engineered to generalize across various vehicle types, with potential future applications in robotics. Even while focusing on trucking, Waabi simultaneously collected and simulated passenger car data, underscoring that robotaxis were always a component of its long-term strategy. This integrated approach is intended to facilitate faster and more cost-effective development.
With this recent deal, Waabi's total funding now stands at approximately $1.28 billion. In comparison, competitors such as Aurora Innovation have raised $3.46 billion, while Kodiak Robotics has secured $448 million.
Waabi has already commenced several commercial pilots for its trucks in Texas, currently operating with a human safety driver onboard. A fully driverless truck rollout on public highways, initially projected for late last year, is now anticipated within the next few quarters. The company is actively collaborating with Volvo to construct purpose-built autonomous trucks, which were first unveiled in October. The Waabi Driver technology is considered ready, awaiting the full validation of these new trucks. For its trucking operations, Waabi plans a direct-to-consumer model, allowing shippers to purchase outfitted trucks directly. For the Uber rollout, Waabi intends to integrate its sensors and technology into vehicles directly from the factory floor.